Up there with putting and abstract painting on life's list of things that look easy but are actually difficult is the sinner's memoir.
What could be easier than ripping it up for a few days, weeks or years and then poring all your memories out on the page? Jim Carroll, in his basketball and downtown diaries, made it look so easy. Hunter S. Thompson created a journalism legend with a bender in Las Vegas.
Now comes Mike Edison down the same path with some promising anti-hero credentials. A teenage hellion and autodidact from suburban New Jersey, Edison made his way to New York City in the early 1980s.
He has survived and even thrived into middle age doing exactly everything your parents told you not to do. He's made a living as a pornographer. He's gotten in the ring at pro wrestling events. He's toured Europe with punk rock bands, had a bunch of one-night-stands and done lots and lots and lots of drugs. He even got his dream job, as publisher of High Times magazine.
"That's not a resume - that's a crime scene," he says.
The bad news is that's one of his better lines.
In an apparent nod to Thompson's "savage journey to the heart of the America dream," the subtitle on Edison's autobiography promises "savage tales of pot, porn, punk rock, pro wrestling, talking apes" and some other stuff. But it's more of a catalogue than a robust retelling.
The fault lies foremost with Edison's tendency to get bogged down in details few readers will care about. Office politics are just petty and dull, even if they're at a porn rag or the premier American dope magazine. The book starts, for example, with Edison's outrage that his staff at High Times is ... you'll never guess ... a bunch of complacent stoners! Who would have thunk it?
When the wild times do occur, they're often recounted in a slightly grating machismo tone. It's more like overhearing the loudmouth at the bar than being, say, at a table with a friend who is really dishing the dirt.
Fortunately for Edison, the book ends inconclusively.
He could always go out, have more adventures, then come back and try again. Next time, maybe readers can have some fun, too.
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"I Have Fun Everywhere I Go"
Mike Edison (Faber and Faber)
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